


Disgusting, Useless, Angel

by Nhitori



Series: Adult Life is Already so Goddamn Weird [1]
Category: Dangan Ronpa, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Multi, Strange AU, The KomaHina is mostly one-sided, fantasy slice of life?, warning for mentions of non-con, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 13:32:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3652194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nhitori/pseuds/Nhitori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hinata has always been boring and average.  He is aware that there are things beyond the usual in this world, but as far as he can tell he's never encountered any of them.  Until he does.  In fact, he meets two supernatural beings in the course of a week.  He's confused at first, but y'know.  Adult life is already so goddamn weird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Hajime Hinata was an entirely average person. He had a few interesting stories to tell, sure, but they were average stories. He just had a knack for telling them in a way that made them funnier. He had a bit of talent for that sort of thing, a good sense of humor. He kind of had to have something going for him, because aside from that, he was entirely boring. His stand-up comedy was inhibited by his lack of presence. That’s just how boring he was.

He had never gone to any school other than public school. Well, except for preschool, because there’s no such thing as a public preschool. He went to preschool at the YMCA. Otherwise, however, he just went to public school. His parents could have afforded to send him to a private school, but none of them were really all that interesting to him. Maybe if a school existed that was known to send its graduates to success, but no, that did not exist. All that a private school would do for him was make him fancier.

Aside from his incredible lack of any really defining features, he was doing pretty well in life. His apartment only had one maintenance issue, and he kept it clean. The maintenance issue wasn’t even a big deal; there was water damage in the celing in the bathroom, so anytime it rained water dripped in there. But it dripped directly into the sink, so it really didn’t matter. So he’d have absolutely no issue with having company over.

No issue except that he didn’t really know any company to invite over. All of his friends from high school had gone on to bigger and better things in different parts of the country, or different parts of the world. They kept in touch with him, so he didn’t feel lonely or anything, but he never really got the chance to exercise his hosting skills and if he didn’t get more friends soon then he would absolutely run out of material.

Of course, none of those things were on his mind at this moment. He was the kind of boring person that slept in white boxers, but he had made the mistake of putting fleece sheets on his bed because it was cold out. This was a mistake because when he woke up sweating in the middle of the night, the sheets stuck to his skin and just made him panic more.

He didn’t have any idea why he woke up sweating in the middle of the night. He had been dreaming, but the dream wouldn’t have caused that in any way. It was neither frightening nor sexual. No, there was definitely some outside cause of this sweaty hell…

He felt almost like he was being watched. Almost? That’s exactly what it felt like. He regretted his choice of sleepwear now too. If there was a murderer or something in his house, it would be pretty ridiculous and difficult to get away from the murderer while wearing boxers that were sticking to him thanks to the sweat. Who knows, maybe he could escape while the intruder was busy laughing at the fact that the fabric was sticking to his balls.

With all those thoughts circling around in his mind, it was a wonder he didn’t even move from his bed. He would have expected himself to have bolted at this point, just up and gotten out of the house, but he didn’t. While all these anxieties were floating around in his mind, he had been listening to the room. There was nothing. A feeling of being watched was useless if there was no sound. No footprint, no breath. With that knowledge, he dismissed the sweat as paranoia and turned over with his back to the wall, just in case.

On that wall was a window, and just outside the window was someone watching. But that someone would never hurt Hinata. Could never dream of hurting Hinata. Right now, couldn’t even be seen by Hinata. No, he just wanted to watch him. Watch him sleep.

Tomorrow, he would be watching the show. And he would see the memory that his very presence had stirred up. It was in no way conscious, but it would happen, and Hinata would certainly tell a story about it. After all, that was what Hinata did. He told stories. The presence outside of his window smiled softly, then leapt off the windowsill and dissolved into the night.

Hinata awoke the next morning with memories of the strange midnight happening, and he knew that he’d have to write something from it. The thought about an intruder being distracted by his balls was pretty funny, right? He could do something with that? Yeah. He would, of course, but when he first woke up, before he even remembered what had happened in the night, he’d had a flash of inspiration. He honestly wasn’t sure why he hadn’t written about this particular event before. It was certainly an entertaining one. Before breakfast, he jotted down some outlines for it. Much of his comedy was improv, but he did need an outline to keep the story straight. Once he had the story down, he took the elevator down to the second floor of his apartment building. Benefit of living in the city: There was a starbucks on floor 2. Detriments: There were also offices in the building, so there were often confused businessmen in the hallways of the apartments.

He bought a coffee (plain coffee, cream and two sugars. Boring.) and an egg sandwich. Most of his pocket cash ended up going towards pre-prepared foods, because he’d never really bothered to learn how to cook. If he tried really hard he could sometimes make spaghetti, but he couldn’t live off of spaghetti so he usually ate at restaurants. He kept meaning to take a cooking class sometime, but it always slipped his mind.

He pulled out his laptop while he sat and ate. Yeah, he always got all dressed (as in, not just lounge-around-the-house clothes) and brought his laptop with him, even just to the starbucks right in the apartment building. That was pretty weird, but he didn’t want to ever miss an opportunity to type up an outline. In this case, he already had an outline in mind. Now that he’d gotten the first one out of his system, he needed to write one about his waking up in the middle of the night for seemingly no reason. The first one had him so inspired that he’d definitely use it at his show tonight, but then he might use some older material rather than try out two new ones at once. For all he knew, the one he really wanted to use could turn out to be a bust. He couldn’t rule out any possibilities.

Aside from his comedy, he also had a part time job at a local arcade. He worked over there for a few hours each afternoon, from one to four. It was kind of an odd job sort of thing. Some days he worked the cash register at the snack bar, other days he cleaned the bathrooms, and yet other days he made sure all the machines were in working order. He ate a microwave steak and cheese hot pocket for lunch, then headed over there. Everywhere he ever needed to go was within walking distance, which was pretty useful. He arrived there about twenty minutes early, so he just hung out till his shift began. The owner of the place was fairly chill, a guy around his age who wore a bright yellow jumpsuit and had neon pink hair. A rather odd fellow, but he was friendly enough.

“Early again, Hinata?” He asked, leaning against the snack counter. The jobs that Hinata did for him part of the day were generally done only by him the rest of the day, and even then they weren’t done all that well. It wasn’t the best arcade, but it still saw enough business to keep it going and put some money in the pockets of the two people who worked there. It certainly helped the bills that the owner understood how to repair broken machines.

“Yeah, never know when my walk will be delayed so I always leave the house earlier than I need to. So what’s up Souda?” The afternoons were generally one of the two rush hours for the arcade. People getting out of school arrived around two and left by three thirty. The other rush hour was from eight to ten at night, which was closing time. That was when everybody on dates came by, as did a good amount of arcade game nerds. The arcade was closed to children after seven, and many of those nerds weren’t allowed near kids. Which was sketchy, but Hinata was rarely at the arcade that late anyway.

“Eh, nothin’ much. Afternoon rush isn’t starting for an hour yet, as you can clearly see. There’s only one person in here right now.” He gestured over to a girl wearing a backpack who was on level 83 of pacman. Her outfit resembled that of a middle-schooler, but she was clearly an adult. Probably between 22 and 25, maybe she was Hinata’s age.

“Oh, I think I saw her in here yesterday. She came back again?” He asked, watching her play the game with ease.

“Actually, she never left. I closed the store up with her still inside.” Upon noticing Hinata’s incredulous look, he waved his hands dismissively, “Don’t worry, I told her I was closing and she asked if she could stay! When I got here this morning she was still in exactly the same place, so I know she didn’t steal anything.”

“That can’t possibly be healthy. Those games don’t pause, do they?” She didn’t seem any worse for wear, but…

“Well they can, but not for very long. It’d be pretty rude to put a game on pause then just walk away, but I souped up a lot of these machines so that they can pause for a total of like, eight minutes. So she’s been able to go to the bathroom, if that’s what you’re worried about.” The neon-clad guy shrugged.

Hinata sighed and pulled five bucks from his pocket and went behind the snack counter, entering in for a kids’ meal pizza, “That isn’t what I’m worried about. Without either of us here all night she wouldn’t have been able to eat anything, and has she eaten since you’ve been here today?” He processed the payment then grabbed one of the pizza meals from the concealed freezer and stuck it in the toaster to heat it up.

“Yeah, you’re right, she hasn’t. Good thinking, Hinata. You must be real popular with the ladies, eh?” He raised his eybrows and attempting elbow him from across the counter. It didn’t work, and he ended up hurting his arm on the edge. He winced, but awaited his employee’s reply.

“I wouldn’t say that I’m real popular with anybody at all. I mean, you’re kind of the closest thing I’ve got to a friend locally. All my friends from high school live too far away.” He shrugged, waiting for the toaster to finish.

“What? Come on, you’re a cool dude. You’re smart and you’ve got that comedy thing of yours, you must have a few friends, right?” Souda was sincerely shocked.

“Nope, I’m not really good at meeting new people.” The toaster oven beeped, and he took out the pizza, “Probably because I tell every stranger humorous stories about my embarrassing past.” He chuckled as he hopped back over the counter with the pizza, as well as a side of fries and a bottle of water. He walked up to her and waited until she finished her current level to tap her shoulder. She hit the ‘temporary pause’ button that Souda had installed and turned to him, confused.

“Hey, what’s going on? That guy said I could stay past closing.” She sounded really tired suddenly. While playing the game she had looked entirely engrossed and alert, but the minute she looked away she became groggy.

“Yeah, and you can if you really want to, but maybe you should sleep.” He offered, “But that’s not why I tapped your shoulder. ‘That guy’ told me that you haven’t eaten since you’ve been here, so I bought you a kids’ pizza. Try and eat it while you play, all right? Here’s a water bottle too, you’re probably pretty dehydrated at this point.”

She took the things and set them down on the console in front of her, then looked back up at him and nodded slowly, “Thank you, Hinata.” She smiled a bit, “These old games never remind me that I ought to take a break…” Clearly, she was referring to the fact that a lot of new game consoles would interrupt gameplay to tell the player to go do something else for a bit, “And they don’t save, so I have to keep going if I want to win.”

“Well, I don’t think you can actually win Pac-Man… but what you’re doing is pretty impressive. You definitely beat the high score on this machine.” He laughed a bit, then realized that laughing wasn’t fitting to the situation and stopped.

“Yes, but… I’m not trying to beat the high score on this machine, I’m trying to beat the world record for the game.” She looked him over, made a strange little sound, then thanked him and returned to her game while he walked back over to Souda.

“Geeze, that was weird. She’s a weird girl. Do you think it was just cause she’s tired? Or is she that strange usually? She was looking over you like you were paperwork.” The arcade’s owner was running his mouth with one eyebrow up in the air.

“I have no idea, all I did was give her some food. Don’t ask me if she’s that strange all the time, because this is the first time I’ve interacted with her too.” Hinata shrugged.

“What, really? I thought you might’ve met before. How the hell’d she know your name? We don’t wear nametags here or anything.” He ran a hand through his ridiculously bright hair.

“I… don’t know…” He hadn’t even noticed, but Souda was right. She’d said ‘Hinata’. Not ‘Sir’ or ‘Mister’, but ‘Hinata’. Maybe they’d gone to school together and he just didn’t remember? That had to be the case. Whatever, maybe he’d write a routine around this someday. Was that his reaction to everything in his life? The answer was yes. It was.

Speaking of, later that night he tested out the new routine he’d been inspired to work on this morning. His act was actually fairly popular, both around here and on the internet, but so far anyone who’d invited him to perform elsewhere expected him to pay for his own travel fare, which he could not afford. Plus, he was really bad at airports. They didn’t bother him or anything, but he always just ended up confused. But that wasn't the point at hand. His new comedic story was the point at hand.

"All right so. Back when I was in seventh grade, thirteen years old, I got sent to camp. No, not summer camp. I got send to some weird week-long camp that parents who can't get February Break off of work send their children to. I have no idea why it exists. Who wants to go to camp in February? Nobody. Everyone at that camp? We did not wanna be there. Not one bit. It was cold, and dreary, and I’m fairly certain that the person who created that Godawful camp was from Australia, where February is actually in the damn summer.”

“The worst part about it was that there were only three places in the entire camp that were actually heated. There was the mess hall, where we were only allowed to go when there was actually food there because otherwise this kid named Akane would have broken into the kitchen and eaten everything, leaving the rest of us to starve for the rest of the week. Then there was the counselor’s cabin, because apparently, teenagers with nothing better to do deserve heat more than the children who were forced to be there.”

“The third location, though, that was the worst. Yes, worse than the cabin that we were not allowed to go in. The third location was the worst one because we were supposedly allowed in it. Supposedly. See, there was one heated cabin for hanging out and doing fucking crafts. Now, I think maybe two kids there had any interest in crafts, but we all wanted into this fucking cabin because they heated it. Because it’s really, really hard to glue macaroni to a sheet of paper when your fingers are falling off in the cold. Can you imagine? Your kid comes home, hands you this macaroni drawing, it says ‘I love you’ all cutesy but then one of the macaroni pieces is actually your kid’s finger? So yeah they kind of had to heat the crafts cabin.”

“Everybody wanted to get into this cabin to warm up. Sleeping bag with my coat stuffed in it? Worked well enough that I didn’t die at night, but it certainly wasn’t comfortable. I got less sleep in that one week than I got the week I forgot that peppermint mochas did in fact have caffeine in them. So by that Friday, I had enough. I decided that I was going to get into the crafts cabin, no matter what I had to do. That doesn’t sound like much of a feat, but it was actually the sort of thing that led people to advise me, a thirteen year old kid, to write my will before attempting it. And that had nothing to do with the cabin itself, no. It had to do with the person in it.”

“Some kid, I think his name was Komaeda, had managed to stake claim to the entire crafts cabinet. The minute the bus pulled into camp what the fuck, he dashed off the thing and stole every single box of fruit rollups from the mess hall kitchen before they got a chance to lock us out. Now, I get the feeling that Komaeda had been here before, because he made a beeline for the crafts cabin. He basically staked it out as his territory. There’s no evidence that he wasn’t pissing in there. Like, he was literally marking it as his territory. Everybody who opened the door immediately left, because this guy had this ridiculous hair. Yeah, I know my hair looks like a boomerang, so me calling this kid’s hair ridiculous, you gotta know it’s the real deal. He looked like some sort of elderly lion. It was terrifying.”

“Now, when I decided to go into the craft cabin, I got a hero’s sendoff. That kid Akane I mentioned, who would have eaten all the food? Yeah she threw herself, weeping, to my feet. At thirteen years old this was the realest shit that any of us had ever had to deal with. My bunkmate asked if he could have my gameboy if I never came back. I didn’t even own a gameboy, he just thought that’s the sort of thing thirteen year olds are supposed to say to other thirteen year olds who are preparing to stare death in the face.”

“Anyway, I went into this cabin and there he was. The elderly lion. He was just some kid my age with ridiculous fucking hair. At first I didn’t get what all the fuss was about, he was just sitting at the table drawing a sun wearing sunglasses. Which was a little weird for a thirteen year old, considering that’s the cusp of childhood and young adulthood, but otherwise he seemed pretty normal. Till he looked up at me. This kid had like, the eyes of the devil. I felt like if I stared at his eyeballs, I would be sucked into a terrible abyss and never return. I’d be catapulted into the depths of modern spongebob or something awful like that.”

“Yeah so apparently, all this fear was because of his eyes. And I mean, I could understand that. He was smiling at me like he was some sort of hell-demon that just wanted to watch me burn. I don’t know why I didn’t turn around and run, because I definitely wanted to. But I didn’t. Instead, I walked into the cabin. I sat down next to this kid. And I started drawing a sun wearing sunglasses.”

“Yeah, I felt like I had just joined a cult or something. I have no idea why I started drawing that thing. I think his evil eyes hypnotized me, I don’t know. All I know is I stayed in that cabin until I got picked up Sunday afternoon. Everyone who’d given me that big sendoff was avoiding me when they saw me again. I would have avoided me too. I’d just spent over twenty four hours eating fruit rollups, sleeping on the floor, and drawing pictures of the sun wearing sunglasses. And this kid, Komaeda? He never even said a word to me the entire time. We just sat there, drawing pictures of the sun. Wearing sunglasses. And I never saw him again either. Next year at camp what the fuck I was the craft cabin guy that everyone was scared of, and he never came back. Sometimes I wonder what happened to him. Did he get a job drawing the sun wearing sunglasses for a juice company? Because that seemed to be the only skill he had. Hope he’s doing well with that.”

And undetected, he watched from the audience.


	2. Chapter 2

Hinata’s sleep was undisturbed.

Simple, normal, undisturbed. Tonight, there would be no waking in the middle of the night, sweating, feeling as if he was being watched, despite the fact that he was. He was very much being watched, but tonight he was being watched by a presence who was meant to watch him. The previous presence was something dark, something not of this world that was never supposed to exist.

This presence, its very purpose was to watch. Watch, watch over, protect. That was what sort of creature it was. Of course, a creature with that purpose, would not disturb anybody’s sleep. The other creature, well, it was pissed off. When the friendlier presence arrived, after all, it had to leave. It was a threat, in all technicality. It had to go.

The kind presence wouldn’t stir up any memories in Hinata’s mind, it would not influence him in any way. All it did was scare away the other. The other that would have influenced him.

Hinata woke up at his usual time in the morning, set to his regular routine. Got dressed, got breakfast, went back to his apartment. There was generally no variation to his mornings; yesterday was the only other way he spent his mornings, in which he stayed home a bit longer before going to Starbucks.

However, following noon, that was when things sometimes got a bit interesting. He had work at two, but first, he had to head over to the pet store. He had a pet chameleon, who was admittedly a very spoiled reptile. Its enclosure was as tall as him, which had cost him a pretty penny, but he’d been able to do it on a payment plan. He needed to go buy more food for it, cause he was running low. He quite liked going to the pet store, actually. It was owned and run by a young couple, one of whom seemed to know everything there was to know about the proper care and keeping of just about any animal. That was why Hinata had ended up getting the tall-ass chameleon enclosure, the dude wouldn’t let him get the pet otherwise.

Admittedly, Hinata’s chameleon did seem to be the happiest chameleon he had ever met, so he guessed it was all for the better than he got the weird and expensive enclosure for it. At least food for reptiles didn’t have quite as much variation as food for cats and dogs, so he didn’t have to shell out thirty bucks each week for some strange all-natural gourmet pet food. He just had to buy bags of crickets. Some people might pick the expensive dog food over needing to buy bags of crickets ever week, but not Hinata.

When he got to the pet store, only one of the two owners was there. Sonia, the one who wasn’t obsessive over every single aspect of animals. She also had their own personal pet on her arm, a surprisingly tame raven who was somehow allowed around the store. As far as Hinata knew, it had never eaten any of the small animals in the pet store, which was shocking. “Oh, Hinata! How are you today?” She recognized him. Of course she did. Even in the city, there were neighborhoods who just sort of knew anybody, and Hinata’s was one of them. Not that he could ever invite any of these people over, probably. They’d just think him weird for asking.

“Hey Sonia. I’m doing pretty well. Gotta buy some more crickets.” He chuckled as he looked around the store. This was probably the most humane pet store in history, now that he thought about it. It was huge; on either side of it were a dry-cleaner’s and a real estate agency, so they’d been able to steal some space from both of those stores to make this pet store so large. Of course, it had to be this big, considering that they made sure to always give the animals all the space they needed. Only the best enclosures for these animals.

And the only ones that were bred were ones that the owners bred themselves; most of the animals there were actually rescues. Pets found in bad condition, or taken from high-kill shelters. The shelter in this town’s euthanasia rate dropped by a hundred percent once this shop opened up, just because Sonia and Gundam took in every animal before it got killed. They still encouraged adopting from shelters, too. He had no idea how the two of them could afford to do this, of course, but one or both of them was probably born rich. That was the best explanation he could come up with, and it did make sense. So whatever, really.

“Right, how’s Buster anyhow?” Buster was the name of his chameleon.

“Oh, he’s doing great. Spoiled little reptile. Heck, he’s been doing better than I have.” He shrugged as he went to find the food for it.

“Better than you have? Did something happen?” There was real concern in her voice, as if she considered Hinata a friend. There’s no way she did, though… right?

“No, not really, but something weird happened yesterday night. I woke up in the middle of the night and I felt like I was being watched. I was sweating, too, and I didn’t understand why.” He shrugged, “Just something weird that happened.”

“Oh? Have you considered that it might have been a demon?” She sounded totally serious.

“What? Of course it wasn’t. Do those even exist?” He knew that there were some weird things, but he’d never heard of demons being real before.

“Yes, absolutely! Though most of the ones we might encounter here are only classified as demons, they’re actually ghosts.” She smiled sweetly, as if she wasn’t talking about supernatural beings, “There’s demons, witches, vampires, dragons, and angels. I think that’s it.”

“You sound like you know a lot about these things.”

“Well, I’ve had a lot of encounters with them. You probably have too, Hinata! You just don’t realize it! Aside from demons, they can seem just like humans.”

“Well, you’re lucky. I highly doubt that I’ve ever met one of them. I mean, there can’t possibly be that many of them out there, right? Humans are the vast majority. What are the odds that I’d meet one?” He chuckled, picking up a bag of crickets from the shelf.

“I’d say they’re pretty high!” Another voice joined the conversation. He turned to look and; wow, she’d been there the whole time and he just hadn’t noticed her because she only just stood up. The girl from the arcade was standing in the rabbit pen, holding a fluffy white bunny, “Maybe even a hundred percent likely!”

“Hey, you’re the girl from the arcade. Did you finally beat Pac-man?” He turned to look at her, and Sonia turned back to some paperwork, leaving them to converse.

“Kind of! I paused it and that guy overclocked it for me. I beat the record for the score, but I didn’t beat the record for time spent playing it. But I think I also set a brand new record for most control over a speeding Pac-man, because he made the whole game run faster.” She shifted the rabbit in her arms, and it licked at her face a bit.

“That’s really impressive. So… are you getting that rabbit?” He attempted to make more small talk. He wasn’t quite sure why, but he wanted to talk to this girl more.

“I am! I already have two bunnies, but I’ve been kind of busy lately so they’ve been pretty lonely. Hey, why don’t we both pay for our things then you could come back and meet my other rabbits? They’re really cute.” She offered, and he was surprised. Why would this girl who had only just met him invite him back to her house? Didn’t she know about stranger danger?

“I… that’d be cool, but are you sure you’d want me to?” He asked as they both walked over to the cash register, “I mean, we just met and all.”

“...Maybe that’s the case, but I don’t really think that we did. I don’t think we just met, that is. We met at the arcade yesterday, didn’t we?” She smiled at him and giggled a bit, “I’ve seen your comedy show before, so I know you’re a good person.”

“I don’t know if that’s really a reliable judge of my character…” He muttered as he paid for the crickets.

“Well, whatever. If you end up killing me or something then it’s my own fault, right?” She paid then turned to go.

“Aren’t you going to get a hutch for that rabbit?” He questioned.

“Oh, I don’t need to. Bunnies really like me. And if I got a hutch I’d just end up throwing it out, I keep my rabbits in a fence enclosure in my living room. It’s much better for them.” She was right that the rabbit liked her. It wasn’t even making any attempt to get out of her arms. Hinata shrugged and followed her.

“Right, yeah. I’ve got a branch enclosure for my chameleon, Tanaka wouldn’t let me get it until I had a ‘suitable enclosure’ for it. He’s a pretty cool dude.”

“He is. The first time I got a bunny here he was really proud of me because I already had an extra-good pen for them.” 

“So, I’m guessing that your interests are rabbits and video games. Anything else?”

“No, I think that’s about it for me actually. By the way, my name’s Chiaki Nanami.”

“Nice to officially meet you, Nanami.” He chuckled.

“Nice to meet you too, Hinata.” And with that, they were at her apartment building, apparently. It was also apparently the same apartment building where Hinata lived.

“Oh, cool. We live in the same building.” He noted.

“I think everyone who shops in this neighborhood either lives in this apartment building or in an apartment above the shop they own, actually. I’m not surprised.” She smiled as they stepped onto the elevator, and she pushed the button for the eleventh floor. The first floor was the lobby, the second floor was Starbucks and some offices. Then there were offices up to floor ten, and apartments from floor eleven all the way up to floor 32. There were many vacant apartments in this building. It was way too big for the neighborhood.

“Yeah, you’re right about that.” He thought about it, and yeah. Sonia and Gundam lived above their shop, Souda lived above the arcade, he and Nanami both lived in this apartment building… now that he thought about it some more, this neighborhood was full of young people. Twenty-three year olds owned businesses all over this part of town. Good for them. “Hey, Nanami. What do you do for work?”

“Well, um…” She bit the inside of her cheek and looked away, “I just have a temporary job for now. I can’t say I like it much, but it pays the bills.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“It’s kind of dangerous for me, so I want to get out of the business as soon as I can, actually. I’m not really strong enough to stay long enough to get a lot of disposable income. It’s a better job for girls who know a lot of self-defense stuff, y’know?” She still didn’t outright answer his question, but by her words he could figure it out anyway.

“I see. Y’know, you could probably get a job at the arcade. Souda’s always looking for more help, but nobody he can stand to be around ever applies.”

“Huh?”

“I mean, he hires people that he’s chill with. Like if someone shows up to the job interview acting like someone other than themself, he won’t hire them. Kinda gives a chance to people like me who were never great at acting like every job I apply to is the most ludicrous opportunity I’ve ever been offered.”

“I see. I can understand that he would do that, he’s a very friendly person. Maybe I’ll apply there, yeah. I’d like to work in an arcade.” She brightened up significantly as the elevator got to her floor and they stepped out, going to her apartment. As soon as she opened the door-

“Holy crap you weren’t kidding.” Aside from a perimeter for walking around, Nanami’s entire living room was a rabbit pen. A rabbit pen with two rabbits. Well, three now, as she put the third one down. 

“I take my bunnies very seriously, Hinata.” Her face reflected this statement briefly, before she returned to smiling. She pointed at a speckled brown one, a black one, and the new white one while saying their names, “This one’s Usami, that one’s Mono, and this new one’s Mimi.”

He crouched down, looking into the pen, “They’re definitely cute. And you care a lot about them to give them all this space, don’t you?”

 

“Well, if I’m going to be keeping them as pets, the least I can do is make them as comfortable as possible, right?” She giggled, then Hinata checked his watch.

“Oh shit, that took longer than I thought, I could be late for work.”

“I’m sorry!”

“Don’t be, I’m glad I could meet your bunnies. I’m gonna run up and leave this bag of crickets at home, then why don’t you head over to the arcade with me so you can schedule a job interview with Souda?”

“Sure!” She nodded, then followed him. He dropped off the crickets, then walked at a brisk pace to the arcade. She kept up easily, keeping with him all the way there.

“Hey Souda. Sorry, I was almost late. I was talking with Nanami here. Any chance she could get a job interview with you?” He asked, catching his breath. Wow, he was out of shape. Just cause he was skinny didn’t mean he was at all capable of movement without exhaustion. Meanwhile Nanami was totally fine. Souda looked her over for just a moment.

“You’re hired.” He decided, crossing his arms and laughing a bit.

“What?” She took a step backwards.

“I said you’re hired. I already know you’re cool, and this job requires no skills. I’ll get you the paperwork and shit tomorrow. I don’t really need to run a background check on you, considering you were in here overnight and didn’t steal anything, and hell. You’re pretty good at these games, maybe you can offer to get people past a level they’re stuck on for five bucks. Play any games besides arcade machines?”

“Yeah, definitely. Lots of games.” She smiled, “If you’re asking me to let people buy shiny pokemon off of me, I’ll gladly do it. I don’t mind shiny breeding at all. I have every pokemon too, so I can breed anything.”

“That’s exactly what I was about to ask you to do. Good thinking. Only here a few minutes and you’re already a better employee than Hinata!” He chuckled, “Nah, I’m just kidding. You’re both great.” He clapped them both on the back. “Nobody’s here right now, so you kids can just hang around. I was bored so I already cleaned the bathrooms, so there’s not really anything for you to do at the moment.”

Hinata rolled his eyes at ‘you kids’, considering he and Souda were a similar age, and assumedly, Nanami was around that age too. However, he wasn’t about to complain about the free time before the after-school rush began, and decided to spend it trying out the overclocked Pac-Man machine (which was left that way, since there was a Ms. Pac-Man right next to it that was still normal speed). He died pretty much immediately. He had absolutely no idea how Nanami had managed to get a high score like this.

Then again, she was also the girl who would happily get paid to breed shiny pokemon, so she clearly had many, many skills in the branch of video gaming. What was with all these talented people around him? Nanami with her games, Souda with his mechanical shit, Gundam’s animal obsession… then there was him. An average dude who worked at an arcade and did stand-up comedy. Even the girl who owned the grocery store used to be an idol.

Not to mention Sonia’s apparent many encounters with odd things. He was actually pretty jealous of her for that, jealous of most people for just being so good at things. But, whatever. He was satisfied with his life, even if nobody would be in awe of him. He was happy, this was exactly the kind of life that he wanted to lead.

His shift at the arcade was a lot longer today, because he didn’t have a gig tonight. So he was walking home in the dark. Nanami had left earlier, because she still had to do things at her old job and put in her two weeks and all that. So Hinata was walking home, in the dark, alone. It was vaguely intimidating, especially when he saw…

That.

At first he thought his mind was playing tricks on him. He only saw him for a split second, after all. He was there, then he wasn’t. It was late, the arcade was loud, he could easily be having brief hallucinations. Except, that if it was a hallucination… wouldn’t he be seeing a fourteen year old kid there, rather than a guy his age?

He was only there for a split second, leaning against a telephone pole. But then there he was again, in an alley. Sitting on the curb. It was him.

“...Komaeda?” Upon these words, he stopped disappearing. He just stood there, in the middle of the sidewalk.

There he was.

The elderly lion.


	3. Chapter 3

"You're right, Hinata. That's my name." He didn't move as he responded. He just stood there.

"What are you doing here?" Hinata asked, slowly. It was far too coincidental. He just told the story about this guy yesterday, and now... here he was. Standing in the middle of the sidewalk, looking disheveled.

"Oh? Well. I just happened to see your show about camp what the fuck." He smiled, and it was somewhat intimidating. He looked perfectly friendly, and yet also like he was never meant to look friendly, "Figured that since you remember me so well, I ought to say hi to you."

That raised further questions of course. Why didn't Komaeda approach him in a more normal fashion? Why now, late at night, only interacting once interacted with? Then again, maybe Hinata shouldn't wonder about the motives of the same guy who scared a whole camp of kids away from a cabin for a week. "Well... hey."

"I'm sorry that I scared you. And anyone else. Everyone was welcome to join me in the cabin, they just didn't. I'm not sure why. I guess I just gave off a frightening vibe. Ironic." He chuckled, looking down at his feet and kicking the ground a bit. As he made this movement, something about his presence didn't seem quite right, "I wouldn't be surprised to find out I'm frightening these days, but back then, there wasn't even any reason for me to be scary..."

"Well. Don't take this the wrong way, but you are actually frightening today." Hinata continued to stand where he was, looking confused and put off.

"I figured as much, though I can't say I expected you to say it so easily. What with you being my only friend and all, but that's all right. You're a big-shot comedian, aren't you? I'm just a speck of dirt to you now. But that's fine. I expected as much." He stopped kicking the ground, and seemed much more at place.

"...Your only friend?"

"Yeah. I know you remember. That time we spent in the craft cabin that February? It really meant a lot to me, Hinata. I know we didn't talk, but we didn't need to. The connection was there." Hinata couldn't even respond to that one, and once the strange man noticed that, he continued talking, "Which is why I'm asking you now, will you go out with me?"

"...No." He took a step back, confused out of his wits. He didn't know anything about this guy, except that he'd been in that craft cabin.

"Wow, that's so lame. Just because I dress conventionally-"

"You don't, really-"

"But anyway. You'll just be my unrequited love constrictor, Hinata. It's your hands I'd imagine around my throat as I breathe my last breaths." He started kicking the ground again, just making his statement even weirder as he once more seemed noticeably out of place.

"...I'm gonna... go..." Hinata muttered as he stepped around the guy, and by the time he glanced behind him, Komaeda was gone. He just wasn't there anymore. There weren't even any footsteps, he was just... gone.

Just as strangely as he appeared, he disappeared. That was definitely the strangest experience Hinata had ever had. Stranger than camp what the fuck, stranger than waking up sweating in the middle of the night. This was surreal.

He sighed to himself, and shrugged it off. Weird things happened when it was late, and the rest of his walk back to the apartment building was entirely uneventful. Once he got back there, and into the elevator, he was surprised to see that she was there. How had he missed her on the way in? “Hello, Hinata.” Nanami simply smiled sweetly at him, “Fancy seeing you here!”

“Oh, hey Nanami.” He wasn’t going to question how he missed her, he was just glad to see somebody sane at this hour.

“Are you all right? Did something happen?” She leaned towards him, concern in her face. He put a hand back, leaning on the handrail thing in the elevator in order to relax his body in an exasperated manner.

“Yeah, sort of. I ran into some weirdo on my walk back.” He shrugged, “And I’m tired, because it’s pretty late.”

“Some weirdo?” She asked, taking another step towards him and crouching down a bit to look him in the eyes, “Tell me, what happened?”

“It’s no big deal, you don’t have to worry so much.” He offered her a lopsided, sheepish smile, “He was just a weird guy. Everyone deals with weird people.” Just as soon as he finished saying that, the elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Nanami straightened up immediately, and for the first time in probably her entire life she looked vaguely intimidating.

“You.” Her statement was hard and blank, so Hinata looked over to see who it was that she was addressing. It was him. Komaeda was, somehow, standing right there, and clearly Nanami had a bone to pick with him.

“Oh, it’s you, is it? And yes, it’s me. I’d like to speak with Hinata.” Komaeda smiled, raising a hand. To an unknowing person, he’d simply look happy and welcoming.

“Too bad. You need to leave.” She crossed her arms over her chest, staring him down.

"You two... know each other?" Hinata questioned, looking between the two with his eyebrows furrowed together.

"Know each other? Oh no, we've never met. Not personally, at least. Though this angelic girl here has chased me away as rudely as if I was merely a raccoon rooting through her trash. A terribly wrong assumption, of course. I have nothing to do with garbage, besides being it myself." His smile turned smug, and Nanami just seemed to get angrier, "Besides, Chi-aki," His voice was somewhere between condescending and musical, "Do you really want me walking away where Hinata can see? We have one common interest, don't we? Well, two, if we count Hinata." 

She didn't respond to that, grumbling as she pushed the "door close" button. After three minutes or so, she opened the door again, and Komaeda was gone. Hinata wondered if he should ask her what that was all about, but decided against it. He hated drama, in terms of reality. Soap operas, (Or Soapies, as the woman he met once in the lobby calls them) were fun to watch until they started happening to him.

“...Goodnight, Hinata.” Was the only other thing Nanami said to him before being on her way to her apartment, and him to his own. Once inside, he pet the head of his lizard, put his laptop and phone on the charger, then immediately went to sleep. Exhausted, he didn’t even bother with changing out of his clothes. Tonight was not the sort of night to make any effort in going to bed.  
\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Nagito Komaeda.” A soft voice echoed off the walls around its source. Chiaki Nanami stood in an alley, far from the city lights. It was all dark, except for where she stood, which seemed to be just a little brighter than the remainder of its surroundings. She held her jacket closed across her chest with one hand, counting each breath as she waited nervously for a response.

“Nanami.” He chuckled, stepping forward, his foot just the slightest bit in her patch of light. No, not quite… it seemed as if it would be, but instead the toe of his shoe which should have been softly lit simply seemed to be invisible, non-existent, “I see you’ve neutralized me as a threat, for the duration of our conversation. Smart move, putting the world on pause so I couldn’t do it myself. I am completely at your mercy now, aren’t I? So what are you going to do? Will you destroy me?”

“Of course not.” She spoke kindly, but firmly. All that which was commanding disappeared in her last statement, however, leaving her voice quiet, walking the line of earnest and monotone, “Do you remember me, Nagito?”

“Not very much.” He shrugged, “But I remembered your name, Chiaki. And I remember that you failed. You failed, excluding… the one time you broke the rules.” She tensed up as he mentioned that, and he smirked, “Using that power of suggestion, to make Hinata come and meet me… is that why you’re protecting him now? Is it punishment for what you did?”

“... Yes.” She paused before continuing, “It is. But I don’t intend to slack on this job either. I did my very best as your guardian angel, Komaeda, but now I am Hinata’s. My job includes keeping demons like you away from him. I’ll do whatever I have to, to keep him safe. Whatever, short of destroying you completely.”

“Demons like me?” He questioned, then started laughing, a full-force guffaw, “For someone with such strong holy powers, you really are clueless! I’m hardly a demon at all, I’m just a ghost. Really, all I can do is float a bit. I wouldn’t even consider that whole time thing to be useful, I mean. Anytime I’m moving, time stops around me. It’s a pain, truly.”

“You’re… only a ghost…?” She tilted her head to the side, crossing her arms, “I thought for sure that if you came back, you’d end up as something powerful, with that luck of yours… but if you’re really just a ghost, I suppose it’s not a large problem.”

“So I can go after Hinata after all?”

“I didn’t say it was no problem. I said it wasn’t a big one. There’s a big difference, Nagito, and you should know that.” Nanami sighed, releasing the jacket from her grip, finally, “I can allow you to pursue Hinata romantically, but if you harm him, I will chase you off again. You’ll have to stay away then, do you understand?”

"Of course."

"Okay, Komaeda." She smiled at him, then blinked twice and the world returned to normal, "I wish you luck! Behave yourself!"

That night, the unsettling presence would once more find itself in Hinata's apartment, but this time, it would not wake him.

The soothing presence would sleep nearby, in her own home, hoping she did the right thing. She was nobody to stand in the way of Hinata's happiness, and if fate led to a day where Komaeda could make him happy, she wouldn't interfere.

But again,  
Nagito Komaeda was unsettling,  
and Chiaki Nanami was sworn to protection at any and all costs.


	4. Chapter 4

Hajime Hinata woke the following morning in what he could only describe as "a daze". He knew of course that the reason had to be because he'd slept in his clothes, but it was worse than he usually felt when he slept that way. He wondered if that odd and awful feeling he'd had a few nights ago had returned while he was sleeping, but even if that was the case it wasn't like he could do anything about it.

As soon as he was awake and aware enough to count on the probability of injuring himself having gone down to its usual percentage, he stepped into the bathroom and got a shower, because he'd sweat a bit too much during the night and very much wanted to stop feeling so incredibly gross.

Five minutes into Hinata's shower, the probability of injuring himself shot right back up to ninety-five percent. The reason for it wasn't anything one would expect, however. He didn't get shampoo into his eyes or turn the water up too hot or too cold, and he didn't get any soap or anything on the floor to slip on; those were all incredibly valid causes for shower-based injuries, and even the somewhat less-likely ones such as being infected by toxic mold or having the shower rod fall down on your head were at least things that somebody could potentially expect.

This injury was when Hinata suddenly moved as far away from the shower curtain as he could and fell against the wall, hitting his head. The reason for this was of course, the voice coming from the other side of the shower curtain that had said, "Hello Hinata," and when he was finished cussing about the pain he felt as a result of that he took a moment to recognize the voice as belonging to none other than Nagito Komaeda.

"What the hell are you doing here!?" He shouted, not at all any less concerned with keeping away from the shower curtain, perhaps even moreso now that he knew the identity of the mysterious voice in his damn bathroom. Komaeda wasn't the type of person anybody would want to mysteriously appear in their bathroom while they were showering, least of all Hinata.

"Oh, does your greeting really need to be so hostile?" Komaeda questioned, sounding hurt. Hinata couldn't imagine why, though. What sort of reaction was he /expecting/ when he showed up like this?

"Yes. It does. You showed up, in my bathroom, while I was showering. How'd you even get in here? I locked the door!" He grumbled fearfully, not moving from the far corner of his shower.

"That's confidential." The voice said softly, then giggled. Hearing a voice like that giggle was probably one of the most horrifying experiences one could ever have, "As for why I'm here, I promise I'm not trying to peek on you or anything like that, Hinata. I respect your privacy," says the guy who broke into a home bathroom, "I'm only here because I wanted to talk to you first thing in the morning. The fact that you're showering is mere coincidence."

Hinata wasn't quite sure he believed that, but nonetheless, he responded, "Fine. What did you want to talk to me about?"

"Well I wanted to ask you out again. See, I have Chiaki Nanami's blessing this time!" Komaeda said in earnest, and Hinata was confused. He wasn't quite sure Nanami was in a position to say that.

"No." His response was simple.

"Come on Hinata, just one date? Just one?" He asked again, and Hinata sighed before responding.

"Look, if I say yeah, sure, one date, will you go away and let me finish my shower in peace?" He questioned in annoyance.

"Absolutely!"

"Fine then. Sure. One date. Now leave." And with that, Komaeda was gone. Hinata wasn't sure what to make of it. Was that a hallucination, for that matter? Did he just agree to date a hallucination? Shakily, he stood back up and resumed his shower as normal. Well, most normal, aside from the fact that he'd had a soft paranoia instilled in him so his eyes kept flitting around the room, fearful of anything else odd happening.

He quickly shampooed his hair, then got out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his waist as quickly as he could. A number of paranoid idiosyncracies had wormed their way into his subconscious, and he was sure it wasn't healthy, but what else could he do now that he was terrified of Komaeda just showing up whenever? It occurred to him that they hadn't worked out a time or place or anything, so he'd have to encounter the white-haired weirdo at least two more times before he could /possibly/ be done with him at all.

When he was certain there was no way Komaeda was currently there, he got dresses and went out to the kitchen. He wondered if he really wanted to get Starbucks that morning, he was getting pretty sick of it, but... it wasn't like he had anything in the house, either. So he packed up his laptop, grabbed his keys and his wallet, and went downstairs.

He'd been set up nicely with his laptop plugged in and in front of him, typing away while he waited for his coffee and his small cup of maple brown sugar oatmeal to cool down for about ten minutes before he noticed that he wasn't quite alone at the table. He only saw a glance above his laptop screen at first, but then he did a double take and looked up. There he saw it, of course. An inexplicable mess of hair perched atop an intimidatingly friendly-looking face.

"Hello again, Hinata." Komaeda smiled brightly and tilted his head to the side, "I'm sorry about this morning, I truly didn't mean to startle you at all! I was just far too excited to speak to you again, I didn't stop to think that perhaps my timing wasn't the best!"

"Well, your timing was pretty terrible, but I guess I can let it slide..." Hinata sighed, stirring his oatmeal which was somehow still too hot to eat. "So when did you want that date, anyhow?"

"Hmmm... well, how about now?" He offered, to which Hinata gave him a rather perplexed look, "I was thinking of a coffee date anyhow, and we're both already here, so we might as well, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so." Hinata shrugged, then nodded, then closed up his laptop and put it back into his bag, "So I guess this is where we start getting to know each other? I've never actually been on a date, you see."

"What, you haven't? Oh, right. I suppose that anyone who's shown an interest in you in the past hasn't worked out very well..." Komaeda looked pensive, as if in thought, "That cute nurse you were flirting with..."

"What, have you been stalking my facebook account or something?" He asked, half-joking, half-serious, "And what ever happened to Tsumiki, anyhow?"

"Yes, well. Not exactly. I only checked over it last night, to try and learn a little more about you and your life since we met all those years ago. As for that nurse, well, she was murdered." The disturbingly innocent smile never left his face.

"Murdered? By who?" He questioned, furrowing his eyebrows together.

"I'm shocked you didn't hear about it. She was killed by one of the other doctors at thw hospital. It seemed he had been doing some rather unsavory things to the comatose patients, and when she confronted him on the matter, he overpowered her and eventually murdered her, after having his way with her. He was sentenced to only twenty years in prison for it. Isn't that sad? The bad doctor, didn't even get his comeuppance..." Up until the last few words, Komaeda's sociable smile remained on his face. In stark contrast, Hinata looked mortified.

"That's terrible!" He grimaced, shaking his head, "I wish I'd known when it happened, I would have sent consolation to her family or something, I would have gone to her funeral..."

"Hinata, if I died an untimely death, would you come to my funeral?" He questioned softly, looking almost like his own question hit a nerve.

"Well, I guess I would, now, and if I knew about it." He shrugged, tapping his fingers on the table, still lost in thought over the shocking information regarding that nurse.

"But you wouldn't have, if I was to die just after camp back then, right?" He asked, then sighed almost sadly before returning to his usual smile, "Not that I can blame you, I was a really weird kid! Anyhow, let's talk about some more pleasant things. What's your favorite song, for example?"

"Mine's actually..." He chuckled a bit sheepishly, looking away, "Honestly, I really like the song 'What's New Pussycat' by Tom Jones. I know it's just some old pop song or whatever and the lyrics mean basically nothing, but I like it."

"Oh, that's interesting." Komaeda nodded, then laughed quietly, "See my favorite song is also by Tom Jones. 'It's Not Unusual'. Isn't that an interesting coincidence?"

"Heh. Yeah, I guess it is." Hinata shrugged then was finally able to eat a bite of his oatmeal. He hadn't expected to enjoy a second of the time he'd be spending on a date with Komaeda, but he had now enjoyed several seconds, even with that rocky start talking about the assault of his ex-almost-girlfriend.

"Do you have any pets?" Was the next question lodged.

"You should know that, you've been in my house..." Hinata muttered, but when Komaeda just shrugged in response he sighed and answered, "I've got a lizard. A chameleon named Buster to be precise. How about you?"

"I don't have any pets. I never have, actually. It's a shame, I was simply never allowed to. I would like to, but alas." He shrugged once more, "No animals have ever been placed in my care."

"Well there's a really good pet store a few blocks away from here, you could go get one there if you want to." He offered.

"Oh, I know about that place, but I just don't have the space or the money to give anything a proper habitat or anything like that. It's just the way things are. Maybe someday I'll be able to get a pet, but for now I must remain petless." Komaeda responded, "So, what's your part-time job, aside from being a stand-up comedian? I heard you mention it."

"Oh yeah, I work over at the arcade. It's not really that much of a job, I mean... I have to work but I don't really have to work that hard, it's kind of just hanging out with a small sprinkling of work added in. It's pretty nice, actually."

"I see. That does sound nice." Komaeda nodded slowly, "Well, anyway, this has been nice but I imagine you're quite a busy man, Hinata! I see you're done with your oatmeal, so I'll walk you back up to your apartment then be on my way, if that's all right? Thank you very much for humoring me, and I hope you won't mind meeting with me again in the future. My phone number's on your coffee cup."

"On the cup...?" Perplexed, Hinata looked and found that it was indeed there, "When did you write that?"

"Oh, that's unimportant. Could I ask you for perhaps the simple favor of holding your hand?" He asked, suddenly standing right next to Hinata. Hinata stood up, picking up his coffee cup and slinging his bag over his shoulder.

"Yeah, I guess so." He took Komaeda's hand and, this time of day in the building it was by no means busy enough that Hinata would notice that, for the duration of the time he was walking with Komaeda, the world was quite literally stopped around them. In the elevator, he had one more thing of importance to note, "Just so you know, you're not my boyfriend. This wasn't terrible and if you like me and stop being creepy I won't mind spending time with you, but we aren't in a relationship. My opinion towards you is neutral, so if I start going out with someone I actually like, then whatever this thing is, it's off, okay?"

"Oh, that's fine by me Hinata!" Komaeda replied quite enthusiastically, "I'm just glad to be able to spend any time with you at all! And if it turns out that we do go on more dates, maybe you will grow to like me!" The elevator reached Hinata's floor, and before the doors opened, Komaeda leaned over and kissed him. 

He was stunned, but had to get out at his floor, so he didn't exactly have time to think about it till Komaeda was already rather long gone.


	5. Chapter 5

When Hinata got into work later that day, Nanami was already busying herself; by playing the overclocked pac-man machine. There currently weren't any customers, so they were honestly just overstaffed at this point. Souda was sitting up on the snacks counter, sorting out the different colors from a package of skittles.

"You sure that counter's clean enough to be doing that?" Hinata asked, and his boss just shrugged.

"Well on one hand, I did clean it just before I started. On the other hand, I have no idea if windex multipurpose cleaner really has any effect at all on the spit of children, so I guess I'm just risking my health for the purpose of organized skittles." He put another green into the green row.

"Why are you organizing them anyway?" Nanami called out without looking up from the arcade machine, "Do you have OCD? Is that why you're terrible at tetris?"

"Nah." He shook his head as he continued sorting them out, "I don't like the red ones, and somebody I used to know loved the red ones, and we both hated the purple ones, so we always sorted out every pack of skittles we got. I guess it's a hard habit to break." 

"Why did you used to know them? What happened?" Hinata asked, worried now that he would hear about somebody dying for the second time in one day.

"Eh, I moved away, haven't been able to get back there, really." He shrugged, "She's not on facebook or anything either so we can't exactly get back in touch."

"Why can't you go back there?" He continued to ask, "I'm sure you've got enough money for it..."

"I'm sort of hiding from someone." He waved his hand in the air noncommittally, "She lives in the same area as someone I never wanna see again, as long as I live. Basically if I ever really leave this part of town, I will definitely get found. If I stay here, I probably won't."

"That sounds pretty seri-" He was cut off midsentence by Nanami raising her voice slightly so as to be heard across the arcade.

"Drop it, Hinata. It is serious and it's none of your business, okay?" She said these words as kindly as possible, "Souda's private life isn't one that we should pry into too much. Everyone has a sore spot somewhere in their past, even the happiest people. You don't want me asking about the year you were entrenched in debt to an underground group that would kill you if you didn't pay them back, right?"

"How did you know about that?" He questioned. It seemed that both the odd people he'd recently met knew more about him than he was comfortable with, a fact he would probably just have to become accustomed to. It was not a good thing to get used to, but he was pretty sure at this rate his brain would register it as commonplace in the not-too-far future, "But yeah, you're right. That wasn't exactly the best time of my life."

"See? There are things you shouldn't question." She smiled knowingly as she returned her focus to the game in front of her for the time being. Later in the day, when customers actually started coming in, she abandoned it in favor of the snack counter while Souda cleaned the bathrooms and Hinata kept an eye on the machines. Really, running this arcade was hardly a three-person job, at least with an owner as efficient as Souda who was willing to do all the work in the hours his employees couldn't be there.

During a quiet moment, in between when the kids filtered out and the older people started coming in, Nanami beckoned him over towards her then leaned over the snack counter, "Hey, Hinata. What's your favorite type of candy?"

"What? Uh, I guess that I like chocolate bars best." He actually really liked chocolate bars, but was caught off guard by the question. Nanami smiled, then reached out towards his ear.

"Look what was behind your ear!" She joked, holding up the chocolate bar, "See, I've been practicing some sleight of hand magic in my spare time because I heard it can improve your hand-eye coordination, which really is a must if you want to do video game speedruns..."

"That's really cool!" He chuckled, "How in the world did I not see you in here before you came in to break the pac-man record?"

"Well, I'm not sure how to answer that." She paused, "I guess it's just that I only moved here fairly recently."

"Really? Your apartment looked pretty well-lived in, when I went to see your pet rabbits."

"Hm, I sort of just got all my unpacking out of the way right when I got here is all." She assured him, then pressed her hands together, "You'll have to come over again sometime. We can watch movies together, or play games..."

"Actually, um," He turned to the side, rubbing the back of his neck, "Truth is, I was wondering if you might like to go out with me sometime. Like, on a date."

"A date? With you?" She puffed her cheeks out, looking down at the floor before deflating said cheeks, closing her eyes, and shaking her head, "I'm sorry Hinata, but really, I couldn't."

"Ah, that's fine. Just figured I'd ask, I'm totally cool with just being frie-" She cut him off with a sharp inhale before she spoke.

"I do want to, Hinata! I would, really, but I simply can't. Somebody else has feelings for you and I really don't want to make him upset, do you understand? I like you, but he likes you more than I do, I think..." She pushed these words out as if they were incredibly important, then sighed when she was finished.

"You mean Komaeda?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, I do mean Komaeda. He's very infatuated with you, Hinata! It would just be rude of me to go on a date with you, knowing how he feels!" She shook her head, "Really, that's the truth."

"I understand." He nodded, though he was a bit surprised by her insistence. Last night it had seemed like they hardly knew each other, and the amount that they /did/ know each other was completely full of enmity. Well, apparently that was not the case. It didn't exactly bother him, but it did leave him rather confused. In any case, he put it out of his mind and got back to work.

A few hours later, when the last of the arcade's customers had filtered out and the three employees were all closing up shop together, Hinata began to feel a cold and drowsy humor, running through his veins. At first he just felt a little bit off, but within five minutes the lights from the arcade machines were blurring across his vision and he suddenly felt as if he was simultaneously way too warm and way too cold, starting to both shiver and sweat as he soldiered through and continued to mop the tile.

Within the next few minutes, however, a sharp pain throbbed in his head on top of all of that, and suddenly his whole body was aching, until seconds later he simply collapsed.

Nanami had been cleaning off the snack counter again, as it had once more gotten a heavy helping of child spit. As it did every day, because for all their efforts they simply could not stop the kids from, for some unknown reason, licking the glass. Children were some of the strangest beings in the world, doing many things that nobody could explain or stop. It was just the way they were, and it was really quite ridiculous in the opinion of all three who worked at the arcade.

When she noticed the very second Hinata hit the ground, however, Nanami immediately dropped the rag and hopped right over the counter, losing control over her disguise in her panic. Her human form couldn't handle this much worry and adrenaline as she rushed to her charge's side, shifting as she went until she was kneeling on the ground, his head in the lap of her truest form.

Souda looked on, first in awe, then in fear. The awe he felt was of her form, a faceless six-winged being of light, and the fear was entirely for the safety of Hinata, his close friend who had, after all, just collapsed. He ran to the two of them's side quickly, hyperventilating as he spoke at an accidental full volume, "Holy shit! Is he okay?? Nanami, please tell me he's okay!"

"I... I really don't... know..." She mumbled, though the sound of her voice just sort of seemed to fall off of her in echoing waves, "I'm not sure what's happening to him! You should call an ambulance, quickly!" She insisted.

"Are you sure you want me to? If they see you, like this..." Despite his hesitation, he was already dashing over to the phone, so that if she did answer that he should he could do so with speed.

"It's fine. By the time they get here, I'll be able to look human again." With her assurance, Souda nodded and dialed the number, calling and saying that his friend suddenly collapsed and he doesn't know why, and to please get over here quickly.

By the time he was finished on the phone, Nanami was back to her 'usual' self, appearing for all the world like nothing other than a concerned friend. The ambulance soon arrived, took Hinata, asked some questions. Really, nobody had any clue at all what was wrong with Hinata, even Nanami wasn't actually sure what was wrong. She had a slight inkling of what it could be, but no matter what it was, the hospitak would help him somehow. Even if all they could do was relieve the symptoms.

The arcade was soon empty once more, leaving Souda and Nanami standing in the hardly-lit building, staring into the air with arcade lighting flickering over their faces until Souda finally said something, "What are you doing, anyway, running around like this?"

"Hm?" She tilted her head to the side, "I don't understand. If you're asking why I'm living a life among humans, well, that's simple. I am Hinata's guardian angel."

"I call bullshit. Guardian angels... you never see seraphim doing that kind of thing, what gives?" He questioned, crossing his arms over his chest.

"This is what I wanted to do." She shrugged, "I didn't want to hunt demons or be in charge of one of the firms, and any job lesser than this would just be a complete insult to my abilities. So here I am. Besides." Her eyes seemed to be glowing slightly, "There are people who need a guardian that's capable of more than your typical guardian angel."

"What do you mean?" He asked, finally hitting a brick wall for questions he could answer for himself.

"I mean that Hajime Hinata has a great deal of life force stored within him, and there's a demon out there who wishes to steal it." She sighed quietly, "Demon hunters are unreliable at times. Any weapon weaker than that of a cherub's will allow the demon to return, eventually. In the case of something this powerful and evil, I really am the best choice."

"So, what are you gonna do now?" He asked, now over his confusion and just worried about Hinata. If what Nanami said was true, he was pretty sure his friend was in danger. He had only ever personally known a dragon named Syo before now, however, so he had to admit all he knew about angels and demons was his own personal research.

"I'm gonna go talk to a ghost." She spoke softly, almost secretively, "I think, he might have lied to me. Oh, and Souda?"

"Yeah?"

"Touko Fukawa, she still thinks of you, you know. She misses you and she still wants to do everything she can to protect you. You'll meet again someday soon."

"...Thanks, Seraph."

"Please, I'm really not so different from a human. You can call me Nanami. I don't mind."

He only nodded, and as soon as she left, he locked the doors and went up to his apartment and lay down on his bed, and for the first time in quite a while, he cried over his past, and he questioned just what he was doing with his life anyway.

She probably wouldn't be proud of him for it.

\- ----------------------------------

Komaeda saw light and feathers, and knew that he was in trouble.

Correction: He saw Chiaki Nanami in her true form, which he knew she only took in emergencies, and knew that he was in trouble.

This was not the present day Komaeda that was experiencing this phenomenon, however. It was Komaeda Nagito on his way back from Camp What The Fuck, when the forces that be decided to punish Chiaki Nanami for breaking the rules and manipulating a human, by...

Killing her charge. No matter what she tried, she couldn't save him. Even taking on her true form, there was nothing she could do to keep him alive.

These days, her true form didn't mean he was in trouble. It meant Hajime Hinata was in trouble, but in this particular case it also meant that in the very near future he could also be in quite a bit of trouble. It was only when he noticed the gleaming blade in her hand, a sword built of light, that he knew that was most certainly about to be in a world of trouble.

"Nagito Komaeda." Her voice fell from her form once more and bounced off of the surrounding walls, seeing as he had now taken refuge in somebody's shed. She stopped the world again to confront him, of course, especially having taken on this form. For a seraph to be seen in the human world, well, that would certainly stir panic in some circles, "You told me that you were a ghost."

"And that's true. I am a ghost, you watched me die after all." Komaeda shrugged, smiling coolly at her, remaining calm despite the fear that her presence instilled in him.

"Death does not make of one merely a ghost." Her voice was astonishingly harsh as she pointed the blade at him, "You could be any manner of demon, and that's exactly what you are. Any opinion you have of Hajime Hinata is a lie. You merely want to consume him. All that life force, it would certainly make you powerful, wouldn't it?"

"I'm afraid, Nanami, you're mistaken." Komaeda stepped gracefully away from the blade, then yawned, "You really are bad at your job, aren't you? If you think I'm stealing Hinata's life force, he must have shown some symptoms. A mysterious sickness, perhaps? Did you send him to the hospital?"

"Yes... I did." She answered, turning her sword to continue pointing it at him.

"Well then my assessment was correct. For a seraph with some experience, you aren't really great at what you're supposed to be doing. Don't you realize that by sending him to the hospital, you're playing right into her hands?" He asked, and Nanami finally put the sword away, "The one who wants Hinata's life force isn't me, but the one called Mikan Tsumiki. You were only assigned to Hinata recently, after all, and she only died recently. She was a nurse, brutally assaulted and beaten to death by one of her colleagues. She now haunts the hospital, consuming life force from the dead and dying. Hinata's wealth of life force would give her quite the boost to her powers, don't you think?"

"I..." She hesitated.

"First you let me die, now you put Hinata into the perfect position to be consumed? See what I said about being bad at your job?" His eyes glinted as he smiled at her, "If I were you, I'd get over there right away. You know. Before it's too late."


	6. Chapter 6

Hinata was doing a routine.

A comedy routine, of course. Was that what he called it? Maybe it was a skit, or just... a story, but regardless of what it was called it was certainly comedy. It was at his usual place, except that the walls seemed to fade away into the night; but, he would just blame that on the fever. Last thing he remembered he had a fever, and it wasn't half as bad now, so why would he stop doing his routine? The answer was simple. He wouldn't.

"So, I'm about to tell you a story about a guy named Komaeda. Now Komaeda, he is the type of person that you never think you're gonna meet once you're an adult. He's the kid eating paste in first grade who runs around at recess screaming about the upcoming alien invasion, and you think that when you get out of elementary school, you've left people like that behind. The people screaming about alien invasions migrate to the internet, or else they're replaced by guys on street corners shouting about the rapture, and ignoring the fact that corners are generally where you would find prostitutes, and therefore not quite the best place for a holy man."

"As for the eating paste part, everyone's got one friend who will eat anything. I haven't talked to her in a while, but I used to know this one girl named Owari; now keep in mind that both Komaeda and Owari went to that February vacation camp with me, so it's not like I hadn't known them back when they were strange children, but the thing is that it just carried straight over into making them strange adults."

"Anyway though, Owari. Last time I met her, she and I were on this trip together. I joined this singles get-together group a while back and the whole lot of us went camping, and on the last day they told us to use up as much of the sandwich fixings as we could. This girl, she had a sandwich featuring ham, turkey, roast beef, peanut butter, jelly, and a leftover chocolate bar from making smores the night before. I'm also pretty sure, one time, she managed to bite through a phone."

"Komaeda doesn't do either of these things, but he's still that kid, that person that has no place showing up in adult life. So you have to keep in mind, I hadn't seen this guy in years. Years, and the first thing he does when I meet him again is ask me out. Yes, like on a date. I'm over here like buddy, it has been years and we weren't exactly friends the first time we met, either. I am afraid. I'm not kidding, he was so forward that I was more than a little bit freaked out."

"So I reject him, and I go home, and I go to sleep in my clothes because it's late and I'm tired. You ever sleep in your clothes? Now I'm sure that for people who wear t-shirts and sweatpants, it really isn't a big deal. You're already comfy, good for you, but if you're wearing slacks and a dress shirt you are going to wake up feeling like someone just took a dump on any good mood you possibly could have woken up in. It is not comfortable in any way whatsoever."

"So I wake up, all sweaty and really feeling awful, so I go to take a shower. And you see, there's no easy way to say in any fewer words 'I heard a sound I was not expecting to hear while I was showering' so let's make one up right now. Let's call it... a friendly hello. Nobody says that phrase seriously anymore so I say it's about time it took on a new meaning. For how to use it in context, you just have to say something like, 'I got a friendly hello the other day'."

"Now the reason I'm calling it a friendly hello, is because the sound I heard while I was in the shower was actually exactly that. Someone said hello to me, in quite a friendly way, but because I was in the shower it was really very terrifying. I'll give you three guesses as to who was saying that friendly hello to me from the other side of the shower curtain."

"That's right, it was Komaeda. Really, though, out of anybody it possibly could have been he is the only person I have ever met that wouldn't surprise me in doing that. I was surprised, see, but not by the fact that it was him. Only by the fact that he said hello to me while I was in the shower. Keep in mind I have no idea, to this day, how he even got in there. I locked the door when I went in, and it was still locked when I left. It is a mystery."

And that was when things started to go south. The lights in the place seemed to dance around, and he finally looked down at the people before him; they all looked to be a single unit, one mass, a terrifying mass of unknown shapes that simply looked like a crowd from a distance. He took a startled step backwards, raising his arms as if to protect himself from whatever it was in front of him.

The particularly odd thing about the next moment wasn't the fact that Komaeda was suddenly standing right next to him on the stage. No, the most incomprehensible thing, that which made him realize that beyond all other possibility he had to be dreaming, was actually what Komaeda proceeded to whisper into his ear.

"What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I’m the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You’re fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You’re fucking dead, kiddo."

That was when Hinata woke up.

Upon waking, he didn't open his eyes right away. He took a few deep breaths, and waited, and calmed down from his dream. He didn't quite want to assess his location for a few moments. The last place he'd been was the arcade, so was he still there? He slowly started figuring it out, still without opening his eyes at all.

Altogether, he wasn't unsettled. It was an odd thing, but he didn't feel frightened or out of place in the slightest. He didn't like the sounds he was hearing, but he also felt generally safe. Those distant-sounding beeps floated undisturbed in the air, and from them he eventually determined that he must be in the hospital. So Nanami and Souda had called an ambulance, after he collapsed in the arcade...

He realized that he wasn't able to move, but even that didn't exactly bother him. There was a pressure on his chest; he'd experienced sleep paralysis in the past, however, so he remained entirely unbothered. A few moments later, he opened his eyes.

Perched on his chest was a girl. Again, that wasn't exactly the sort of thing to disturb him, since hallucinations were common alongside sleep paralysis. It was probably a good thing he was in the hospital. Between that mysterious sickness, and the several potential hallucinations he'd recently had, there was definitely something amiss. For all he knew, Komaeda was altogether a hallucination, one hundred percent.

This girl on his chest, however, she looked oddly familiar. And yet, there was something very wrong, too. Her clothes, they seemed to be stained with blood. He continued writing her off as a product of sleep paralysis, but...

Then she spoke.

"Hello, Hinata? Do you recognize me? My name is Mikan Tsumiki."


	7. Chapter 7

“M-Mikan Tsumiki?” Hinata stammered out as he looked up at the girl, finally examining her more closely. She was dressed in scrubs, straddling his chest and peering over his face. Her hair was long and choppy, but not altogether unkempt. It seemed like she’d meticulously brushed a very bad haircut, which was now hanging over her face and brushing the pillowcase of the cot on either side of Hinata’s head. He didn’t move at all, didn’t even try as he drew labored breaths through the weight on his chest and looked up into those empty eyes. He kept his gaze away from her stomach where there seemed to be bloodstains, never washed out.

“Yes, that’s… my name…” She sounded unsure of herself as she spoke, despite the fact that she was clearly in the better position here. She took a few slow breaths of her own, clasping her hands to her chest and squeezing her eyes shut, lip quivering nervously, “Do you remember me… Hajime Hinata? We… We knew each other… Once… You were very nice to me… Very nice when n-nobody else was…”

“I know who you are! And you’re right, we were… sort of friends. Komaeda told me that you’d died… I’m sorry I didn’t go to your funeral, I would have if I’d know- Wait,” He hesitated, lifting a finger in the air to keep her from saying anything else while he tried to work through his thoughts. She shifted, then stood up, standing beside him instead and hiding her face behind her hands, seeming to tremble in place, “You… you did die, didn’t you? How am I even talking to you now?”

“Ah… Hinata, my funeral hasn’t happened yet… My family wanted to wait until after that man’s trial was finished…” She shook her head, pulling her hands away to reveal tears streaming down her face. No… they resembled tears in nature, but looked much more like droplets of blood sliding down her cheeks. Coming from those hollow eyes, with her dark hair hanging so limply around her shoulders and across the bridge of her nose, she looked very frightening, “I’m surprised you heard I was dead at all… nothing about it was publicized… Ha…” A weak grin split her face and she doubled over, clutching her arms over her gut where the bloodstains were, “My family was always so passive, after all…! It would be a shame if something like this made him hated around the world for the rest of his life, right!? Ha…!”

“I wonder how Komaeda heard about it…” Hinata mumbled, sitting up now and stroking his chin, staring at the sheet he was under, deep in thought and losing himself in the threadcount as he wondered about the nature of the information he’d been given, back in that coffeeshop. He refrained from commenting on Tsumiki’s behavior, of course; she had every right to be bitter about the man who had killed her receiving much lighter punishment than he deserved.

“Komaeda… you’ve mentioned that name twice now…” She muttered, slowly unfolding back to her full height and shakily wiping those bloody tears from her cheeks, “Who… is that…?” She tilted her head to the side, letting her hair continue to fall over her face in uneven strands, flyaways drifting around pathetically. She was never much more put-together than this, even if the brief time Hinata had known her while she still lived, but the disrepair was far more evident in her post-mortem appearance, even for every effort she seemed to have made to be more presentable.

“Nagito Komaeda. He’s somebody that I… know,” Hinata hesitated before he said this. There was no way he would refer to Komaeda by any friendly term, at least, not at the moment. He was simply too strange, after all, and the extent of their relationship was something that he couldn’t quite put into words anyhow, “An… odd man. I went on a date with him and he seemed to think it was a suitable topic to tell me about your murder.”

“Nagito… Komaeda…” Tsumiki nodded slowly, walking across the room towards the window. She pulled the curtain back slightly, bathing the room in moonlight as she gazed blankly towards the dark, outside world, “I’ve heard that name before… I don’t believe I’ve ever met him, but I did hear his name once, a very long time ago, and… And Hinata, maybe you shouldn’t b-be calling him a man after all… That word, does imply a certain level of humanity,” She smiled, dropping the curtain again and dipping her head, “Just as you wouldn’t call me a, a woman… I get the feeling this Komaeda fellow may have died a long time ago. An accident…”

“What makes you say that?” Hinata asked, leaning forward and staring at her. He figured he was handling the situation (speaking to a ghost who had been brutally murdered) incredibly well. He was proud of himself for not fainting or anything, but he really didn’t feel afraid at all. Only… sad, and curious, the dim room echoing with this memory of a girl stolen from the world.

“I could be wrong…” She mumbled, turning to stare up at the ceiling with her arms hanging limply at her sides, “Or I might not be… I know I never met this man you speak of, but I am sure I heard his name, a very… very long time ago. It must have been in the news, for some reason or another. It would be sensible, wouldn’t it, if he was in an accident? I don’t think he would have been murdered… It’s so long ago that I would have been young, and I’m assuming you and he are the same age as me... I’d remember a name much better if he was a murdered child…”

“Well, he looks human… sort of. As human as he ever looked, I mean,” Hinata shrugged, peering at Tsumiki, “No offense, but he doesn’t look anything like you. No holes where his eyes should be, no blood… He looks like he’s alive.”

“That’s sensible… None taken…” She nodded slowly, stepping a bit closer to him again. The curtains ruffled slightly behind her despite the window remaining clearly closed, and it didn’t quite feel drafty, “I’ll admit, I am… not human, anymore, not at all. I’m a ghost in every essence… before I came to visit you, I made sure to turn up the thermostat so I wouldn’t make you cold, and I wasn’t even sure if you would be able to see me… Most people can’t, but I felt that maybe, you would be different,” A soft smile broke across her face as she peacefully closed her eyes, clutching her hands over her heart again, “I’m so glad that I was right to think that.”

“It must be lonely,” Hinata frowned, running a hand back through his hair despite said hair being too short to really get any purchase on. He’d grown it out very long, once, and was always combing it with his fingers out of paranoia that it would become matted and impossible to manage. That was a hard habit to break, even with the length of it chopped off, “If you’d like, I could come to visit you sometimes. And… I know somebody who could probably see you, she said she has lots of encounters with non-humans. Maybe my friend Nanami could too, or my boss…”

“You’re so kind… just like always,” She shook her head slowly, chuckling a bit under her breath, “Really, you don’t have to do something like that for me. I’m dead, after all. Happiness is for the living… don’t go out of your way to try and help somebody like me when you could be out enjoying yourself. I’m really overjoyed that I got to meet with you at all, Hinata…”

“Don’t be, I’m nobody special,” He shrugged, staring at her from where he sat and hunched his shoulders forward, placing his hands in his lap and turning his eyes down to stare at them, “I’d say I’m the least impressive person I know, actually, so it’s not really anything worth mentioning, to talk to me. And… you said happiness is for the living, but I met you when you were alive and I can’t say you seemed like a very happy person then. If you couldn’t be happy when you were alive, then it’s the responsibility of the people around you to try and give you that chance now.”

“Hinata…” She muttered breathlessly, standing very still as she stared at him in awe, then slowly let another smile come across her face, a bright and lovely sight that stood out from the rest of his appearance. Tears welled up in her closed eyes, but didn’t look out of place in their crimson color. She really did just look exactly as she felt; touched, full of disbelief that somebody would ever show her such kindness, especially now that she was something as offputting as a ghost, “Thank you…”

Her words faded to silence, and Hinata just smiled back at her, a comfortable emptiness to the air around the both of them. Oftentimes the lack of sound would be offputting, and even now there were distant sounds of shooting, wheels on tile, beeping, all the regular sounds that a hospital would have, but there was no impact to them. The room had no true sound to it, and it was comfortable.

This calm, however, was momentarily shattered; no, not only was the calm shattered, but the window which Tsumiki had just been peering through was gone to bits as well, glass clattering onto the floor and echoing off the walls of the small room as Tsumiki immediately leapt to a corner, holding her arms crosswise over her face and cowering with her knees locked. Hinata didn’t have such quick reaction time, so instead stayed right where he was and stared at the window in front of him, or more particularly, at the person who had just broken it.

Person… actually, they didn’t look anything like a person at all. Their form was a humanoid one, but otherwise they looked nothing like anybody or anything that Hinata had ever seen before. It was a creature with no face, a human body made of glowing light, with six wings that unfolding from its back as it stood up in the room. As… she stood up in the room, “Nanami…?” He wasn’t sure where her name had come from, why he was associating it with this creature, or why he’d said it aloud rather than just staring in awe at the unknown being of light that stood before him.

“Wow, Hinata. You recognized me even now?” Her voice filled the room, but sounded soft to his ears, and as soon as he blinked she appeared to be herself again, excluding a sword made of that same bright white light that her own body had been made of moments ago, which she turned and pointed at the ghost in the room, “Sorry you had to see me like this, but… I couldn’t allow this girl to make your condition any worse.”

“My… condition? You mean that fever?” Hinata asked as Tsumiki stared down Nanami’s sword, clearly frightened and crying, “I’ve felt fine since I woke up here, getting better by the minute… Tsumiki hasn’t done anything to hurt me, I promise,” He explained, and Nanami frowned, but lowered her weapon slightly and turned her head to look at Hinata, examining him for any signs of injury or weakness. He did seem to be in better condition than he had been while at work…

“I-I couldn’t hurt him even if I wanted to!” Tsumiki sobbed, trying to get away from the blade in front of her, “I’m just a ghost! There’s nothing I can do! Even if he could feel me sitting on his chest, it’s just a placebo… there’s no way anything I did c-could ever cause him harm…” She shook her head, less so than she wanted to out of fear of injuring herself on the weapon of the seraph before her… a sword like that could end her entire existence with just a small scratch…

“You’re not the first person who’s used the just a ghost excuse on me, Mikan Tsumiki…” Nanami threatened, though her resolve was waning as she saw how legitimately frightened the girl seemed to be of her and her weapon, as well as the defense from Hinata to back up the claims that Tsumiki was honestly harmless, “But Hinata’s condition is improving despite your presence, so I guess… I have to at least listen to what you have to say.”

“Um, well…” She shook as she tried to think of how to explain her nature, “Ghosts can’t leave the place where they died, unless they’re invited out… we can’t be seen by humans unless they have a special ability of some sort… we can’t change out of the most recent clothing we were in while we died, and our injuries never heal…” She frowned, rubbing a bruise on her face somewhat as she said this, though Nanami glanced at the blood on her scrubs. Peering at them proved that there was a tear through them after all, that was hardly visible through the blood-soaked fabric, revealing a slash wound that looked as if it was made by a scalpel… so Tsumiki was telling the truth about that, “And, our eyes look this, and… and I don’t know we really just can’t do… much of anything… c-can you please not kill me again? The last time I died was really… really unpleasant…”

“Hold on one moment…” Nanami frowned and turned away, letting her sword dissolve into the air with the effect of butterflies taking off… everything about her at this moment seemed ethereal and strange, and Hinata was completely speechless. Just a few weeks ago he’d been disappointed but accepting of the fact that he would probably only ever meet humans in his life, but now he’d met at least two obvious non-humans in those same few weeks. Nanami pulled a cell phone out of her pocket and dialed a number quickly, “Um… Hi, Asahina…? I have a question…”

“Nanami?” A voice answered through the phone, cheerful but concerned, “Good timing, I’m not busy right now. You sound nervous though… is something the matter? What’s going on?”

“Well, it’s kind of embarrassing…” Nanami mumbled back, then chuckled to try and mask the awkwardness, though it just made her sound worse off, “I sort of, never really studied the brass tax very much, I wanted to focus more on emotion, plus those books are so boring and they should really make them into a game or something if they really want us to learn it all, but um… you work with dead people all the time, right?”

“You could say that,” Asahina definitely shrugged as she said this, though Nanami couldn’t see her to confirm that fact, “You do realize the irony of this, right? A seraph, calling a cherub to ask a question that she really should already know? You’re gonna owe me.”

“Yes, yes… I’ll buy you snacks, but I just really need an answer… What are the defining traits of a ghost?” She questioned, glancing nervously at the others in the room and waving a hand in apology for interrupting the situation to make a call, albeit a call relevant to said situation.

“A ghost? That’s first grade, Nanami,” Asahina laughed, but didn’t sound condescending, more like she was just playfully teasing Nanami for her foolishness, “Literally. Some elementary schools are now teaching exactly that, to _human_ children. But, you sound like you really need to know, so I’ll tell you! A ghost can’t leave the place of their death without invitation, and the same goes for their clothing. Also, the wounds which killed them can’t be healed! And they can’t be seen by the majority of people. If you have somebody claiming to be a ghost who can be seen by normal people or has no visible injuries, or can go wherever they want, or really just look in any way different from the way they looked when they died, chances are it’s actually some sort of demon… That help?”

“Mm, yes,” Nanami was smiling across her entire face now, but something in her eyes made that smile something absolutely horrifying, “Very helpful. Thank you so much, Ms. Asahina,” And with that, she crushed her phone in her hand, still smiling just the same, and turned to Tsumiki, voice as sweet as usual, “Ah, I’m very sorry I attacked you! See, I’m tasked with protecting Hinata and somebody told me you were a danger to him… but I see that he was just lying to me!”

“I’m not sure w-which is scarier… when you’re trying to intimidate me or when you’re smiling a-about betrayal…” Tsumiki stammered out, now sitting on the floor and clutching her arms to herself while taking deep breaths, trying to compose herself after the panic Nanami had inflicted on her mere moments before.

“Ah, I’m sorry! I really am! I try to be as pleasant as possible whenever I can, but I just can’t allow anybody to hurt Hinata,” Nanami shook her head and closed her eyes, pressing her palm over her heart, “I have no grudge with you if you can’t hurt him, and I’d prefer not to frighten you anymore by revealing my true feelings towards being betrayed by Komaeda…”

“Komaeda…?” Hinata asked, finally getting off the cot and standing up, stepping closer to Nanami with his concern evident in his face, “What do you mean? What did he say to you? Tsumiki was saying she thought he might be dead, is that the truth? If it is, then what is he, if not a ghost? And… what are you, Nanami? You obviously aren’t human either…”

“You’re taking this surprisingly well…” Nanami chuckled nervously, then frowned, “I’m… sorry, Hinata. I thought it would be easier for me to watch over you if you thought I was a human, if I lived alongside you and got you to trust me as if I was a normal person like you… I’m sorry that you had to find out this way, I’m… actually, a guardian angel. Your guardian angel. I’m so sorry that I lied to you…”

“It’s okay, Nanami. I understand that non-humans need to keep their identities secret for safety, and I mean, up until today I might have reacted differently to finding out… not that I could ever distrust you, but it would be a lot more shocking until now,” Hinata shook his head, chuckling softly, “But today… I don’t know if I can really be surprised by much of anything… So while you’re at it, why don’t you tell me what’s going on with Komaeda?”

“If I told you that, Hinata… Then you really would distrust me…” Nanami trembled as she stared down at the floor, and Tsumiki slowly approached her, trying to comfort her with a hand on her shoulder.

“I just told you that isn’t possible. I want to know, Nanami,” Hinata sighed, reaching out to her other shoulder, “I want to know about everything that’s going on. I want to understand all of this, and I want to understand you.”


	8. Chapter 8

“Okay, Hinata, but please remember that you asked me to tell you… if you regret knowing, then please don’t blame me. I really am trying my best,” Nanami sighed, folding her hands over each other in front of her and frowning, visibly nervous as she stopped fidgeting and looked him in the eyes, “Komaeda… he is dead. He died that February you met him, on his way home from the camp. I was… I was his guardian angel, before I was yours. I’m a seraph, the most powerful type of angel, so I got the more difficult charges… you and Komaeda both, you are, or were, human beings with high life force.”

“Humans with high life force need a lot of protection… they’re often targeted by demons who want to steal that life for themselves. In addition, if those humans by any chance become something inhuman, they’re going to be powerful. A cherub or seraph if they end up an angel, a…” She bit her lip, “I’m not even sure what to call him. Ghost is wrong, Tsumiki is a ghost and Komaeda isn’t. Something under the heading of demon, but he isn’t really a… True Demon, or a wraith either. He’s something entirely his own. I… I failed to protect him, which is why he’s like that now. He was struck dead in an accident…”

“An accident?” Tsumiki questioned, tilting her head, “So I was right, but… isn’t it also angels who control who gets into accidents, as punishment for their past or future sins? If you were supposed to be protecting him, then how could that happen? Why would an accident happen?”

“Because I broke the rules. Because I… I utilized my abilities in a way that I shouldn’t have. As a guardian angel I’m only supposed to protect and guide my charge, and as a seraph I’m only supposed to destroy demons who should not be allowed to exist anymore… I can manipulate emotions too, but I’m only supposed to do that to my charge, not to anybody else… but I did. I wanted him to have a friend, so I made Hinata come to visit him in the crafts cabin. I paid the price. My charge was killed and became a demon before my eyes, and my next assignment was the very boy who I had wrongly manipulated. That’s the whole story… that’s what happened. You can hate me now, Hinata.”

“Hate you?” He questioned, then shook his head with a soft smile before wrapping his arms around her, holding her close to him, “Of course not. It isn’t like what you did was some terrible thing, and that was a harsh punishment. You’ve done a fine job protecting me so far, and it seems like until the accident, you protected Komaeda pretty well too. Really, Nanami, it’s not so bad. I could never hate you, and this doesn’t make me trust you any less.”

“Are you sure…?” Nanami questioned, then laughed a little under her breath and hugged him back, burying her face in his shoulder, “Ahaha… and to think I was so worried… I should have known you aren’t that type of person, Hinata,” She shook her head, and seemed to be crying, or at least he felt a wetness on the shoulder she occupied, “You’re… you really are a precious person, and I’d want to protect you even if it wasn’t my job. That’s why, I… I don’t want to leave your side. I don’t want to let danger catch you alone again… I don’t know why you got sick, but it’s because I wasn’t there with you to prevent it. I won’t let something like that happen again.”

“Oh, um, I, I’m really really sorry to ruin the moment but, about his sickness…” Tsumiki interrupted sheepishly, picking nervously at her cuticles and looking anywhere but at the two of them, “Stumped the doctors. No discernible cause, so it’s definitely… something, supernatural. A-and also he’s already been discharged. There’s nothing to be done to help him s-so he’s supposed to leave as soon as he’s capable of it. You’d prefer to go home for the rest of the night anyway, right Hinata…?”

“Yeah,” He nodded as he and Nanami slowly separated, but once they were no longer touching her hand darted out and grabbed his, keeping him close to her. He… had to admit that he was in no way against this, though if asked he would definitely deny that he enjoyed holding her hand like this.

“Hm… no discernible cause. Hinata, when was it that you first started feeling feverish? Was there any event after which you began to feel bad?” Nanami questioned, and Tsumiki leaned closer, nodding to show her curiosity and agreement that Nanami was asking the right questions.

“Well actually, I felt a little bit off before I even came into work, though it didn’t get worse until later in the night, and if I hadn’t decided to sweep then I probably wouldn’t have passed out,” He shrugged, “The only strange thing which happened that morning was I agree to go on one date with Komaeda, on the condition that he didn’t get it into his head that we were an item. He kissed me, before we went our separate ways…”

“Ah, well, I’m officially rescinding my blessing! Sorry if you had any intention of continuing your relationship with him, but I’m afraid that I simply can’t allow that in consideration of your fever and the fact that he’s lied to me. Please understand, this is entirely in the interest of your safety and happiness, so please don’t be ups-“

Nanami was cut off mid-sentence by the feeling of hands on her cheeks and lips against her own. Hinata’s hands and lips, if she was going to be specific in her train of thought. She hardly even had time to process it before he’d pulled away and given her another one of those charming little sheepish smiles, “Trust me. I had _no_ intention whatsoever of continuing my relationship with Nagito Komaeda. Er… regardless of, how you feel about me, I mean. I’d rather be single than be with him.”

“Mmm,” She nodded complacently, still trying to think her way through what just happened with a sort of lazy smile across her face before she came back to her sharper senses and straightened her posture, refining her smile along with it, “Well. Anyway. I,” She paused for a moment, then grabbed his hand again, seeing as he’d removed it from hers to grab her face, “I should say that there aren’t any rules against angels dating people. And that, if my job is to make you happy and you’ll be happier with me… and that, now that I can’t allow Komaeda to pursue you romantically as I once did, I would be absolutely honored to be your girlfriend, Hajime Hinata.”

“Ohhh, that’s sweet… and I’m leaving before this gets too mushy,” Tsumiki giggled a bit, then disappeared through a nearby wall without even giving the others a chance to say goodbye before she took off. Well, Hinata hoped that he’d be able to meet her again someday. It would be a shame to lose a newfound friend so easily, after all.

“She took off in a hurry,” Hinata sighed, shaking his head, “We’ll have to come back at some point, to visit her… she can get into the lobby, right? Otherwise we’d have to find some excuse to get ourselves inside the hospital, and that would be a pain… maybe somebody who works here can see her and could keep her company? I just don’t want her to be alone.”

“Mm, me either… but didn’t she say she could leave the hospital if she was invited? We’ll just have to run into her one more time and give her permission to travel the world, then she can meet all sorts of people! There’s bound to be people all over who can see her, although,” She giggled a bit, “She might have better luck just staying in this city. Or well, our neighborhood.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Until these past few weeks, I never even met anybody who wasn’t human,” Hinata frowned, starting to walk out of the room since he’d technically been discharged and did, in fact, want to get back home, “Unless… they’re hiding it from me, like you were…”

“Most non-humans try to keep their identity a secret from humans, and even from each other at times! But the truth is, you live in a neighborhood that’s just crawling with them! I won’t tell you who because that would be a breach of privacy, but I will tell you one thing. We’re going to be getting some new neighbors in the next few weeks… one will be human, one will be a witch, and one’s a vampire that… well, when he gets here, I’m supposed to keep an eye on him just a little bit. Not to protect him, but to make sure he doesn’t do anything horrible. And… chances are that every day of your life, you meet somebody extraordinary on the street while you walk to work, or in your building, or even at work… that’s the kind of place this neighborhood is. Tell me Hinata, why did you move here anyway?”

“I… well, I don’t know, actually. I just sort of felt like, after the years I spent making mistakes and being confused-“

“The mafia mishap and the time you grew your hair to your waist and dyed it black?” She questioned.

“Yes, things that you inexplicably know about. Well, I guess it’s explicable now that I know you’re my guardian angel, so you’ve probably been watching me for years and also know everything about me. In any case, after everything that happened, I figured this city was a good place to move to in order to get away from all that. The neighborhood seemed to have a small town atmosphere while still having easy public transport to the busier parts of the city, the people seemed nice, and the apartment wasn’t tough to get. I guess I was just sort of… drawn here.”

“Exactly! Supernatural beings are instinctually drawn to areas with others like them, and as much as you might deny it, a high energy human is definitely somebody extraordinary too. You can see ghosts just by virtue of your existence, you got to meet me, and if you live a fulfilled life and don’t die before your time, then you can be just _like_ me someday. This part of the city is full of inhumans and strange humans alike. Nobody who’s completely normal ever seems to end up here, to be honest with you… plenty of humans, yes, but there’s always some catch…”

“So you’re telling me that… for all this time, I thought I’d never even met anybody who was superhuman, but it turns out everybody I interact with on a daily basis is, including myself…?” He furrowed his brow, hoping that nobody else waiting for the subway was listening in and thinking the two of them were absolute weirdos. On the sidewalk it was one thing, but in the trains station…

“Mmhm!” She nodded, smiling brightly, and Hinata decided it wasn’t such a big deal if people overheard and brushed them off as crazy. Nanami’s pride in him for understanding what she was saying was absolutely worth any strange looks the couple might receive.

“Well that’s certainly… something… I mean, I know you said you didn’t want to violate anybody’s privacy by telling me who or what they are, but I’m really curious now. Do I have to just ask them myself? How would I even do that? Hey man, I heard that literally nobody around here is a normal human being, so what’s your deal? I can’t do that, what if they’re like me and still utterly unaware of any of this?” Hinata questioned, waving his free hand around somewhat wildly in gestures exclaiming his confusion.

“I dunno! But I think it would just be rude, if they’re trying so hard to keep it under wraps, to just go ahead and throw that out the window by telling you everything I know! I certainly could, but don’t you agree that it would be really mean?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true… it would be pretty cruel, and it would also be pretty cruel of me to insist that an angel do something like that. There’s just something inherently wrong, about an angel doing something mean…” He chuckled a bit, only to see that Nanami was looking at him with wide eyes, as if he’d said something shocking, “Is something wrong?”

“S-Sorry! I was just a little surprised, I forgot for a second that you’re new to this whole thing. I assure you, my niceness is just a result of my personality! All sorts of people can become angels, as long as they live a long and happy life! Criminals who haven’t truly repented never are of course, but the only _real_ requirement is to be happy at the time of death, and not to die too much sooner than fate would have it anyway… so a lot of angels are actually not so nice or friendly at all! Asahina is, but I met a girl who was an angel and is very bitter… and my friend Nidai, he’s friendly enough, but he’s not at all what you’d expect of an angel!”

“Huh… that’s interesting. Well, I’m glad to have met such a friendly angel, then. And I won’t ask about what sort of things people are anymore. I’ll either end up figuring it out or getting told on my own, or I just won’t,” He shrugged a bit, “I’m okay with not knowing, now that I think about it. It’s not like they’re different people if I know or not, after all.”

“Precisely!” Nanami nodded, dragging him onto the train as it arrived, “Everyone’s personality is exactly the same, no matter what they turn out to be. All I can say is that now that you know, you might be able to pick up on things, sometimes… if you’re observant, and if you do your research, that is! I can’t even tell myself at times to be honest, at least, not with the usual methods,” She laughed a bit, waving her free hand in the air, seeming a bit embarrassed, “Honestly, I’d flunk out of angel school if it existed… but I can tell a whole lot about people by their emotions! Like, if somebody misses someone, I can know that… and if somebody’s hoping nobody finds out their secret… but if somebody’s secrecy is unrelated to their feelings at a given moment, then I’d have absolutely no idea…!”

“That’s still impressive. Most people can’t do anything like that. Wait.. does that mean that if somebody claims they’re a psychic empath, they’re probably actually an angel?” Hinata continued asking questions despite the fact that somebody had sat down on the other side of him. Whatever.

“Hm, no, it means they’re probably lying to you. Usually people don’t want to go talking about their powers as lightly as that! After all, as common and normal as non-humans can be, there’s still people who will be a pain about it…” She pondered, moving her hand from waving to holding a finger quizzically against her own lips.

“What was that you said about… angels… is that girl…?” The person sitting next to Hinata spoke, and he turned to see somebody who… resembled the typical image of a basement-dwelling otaku. He didn’t think people like that actually existed, but here he was, a perfect example and Nanami’s case in point to boot.

“Hey, back off, buddy. She’s my girlfriend,” Hinata grumbled, trying to sound intimidating while also moving over in his seat, further away from this guy.

“Oh, I’m not trying to flirt with her! See, see, it’s my life’s work, aside from drawing manga, to scour the globe looking for non-humans! I find them absolutely fascinating, and if I’m going to write about them, I should know things about the real ones… Things that the internet can’t tell me… I need to know. I need to,” He insisted, but luckily, the train pulled to a stop and Nanami lifted Hinata to his feet moments before the doors closed again, getting out just closely enough that there was no way they could be followed.

Hinata groaned, leaning forward and resting his hands on his knees now, “Wow, that was ridiculous. There’s probably a lot of guys like that out there, too… is that what you were talking about?”

“Yes… well, it’s mostly just coincidence we ran into somebody right at that time, but it’s true that there are people who want to track down and sometimes even capture non-humans, out of som twisted fascination… it’s not so surprising that we’d find somebody like that this late at night, though,” Nanami shrugged, sighing, “He’s harmless, anyway. For now at least. Most of them are, they’re just… annoying. And of course, there are always people who think we’re unnatural and should be killed, but what can you do?”

“How late is it, anyway…?” Hinata questioned, looking around their stop. It was the only one in his neighborhood… his neighborhood, full of spectacular creatures and extraordinary beings. There was only one other person at the station at this time… so it must have been incredibly late, two or three in the morning.

“It’s three thirty AM, you were out for a good few hours,” Nanami explained, starting to lead him out of the station, but he hesitated, staring off at a girl who was leaning against the wall in the station, unaccompanied and looking fairly… disheveled, though it was almost purposeful, like a middle-schooler who tried to combine punk with gyaru, resulting in an outfit and hairstyle that would make either group turn up their nose, “Oh, are you worried about her? Don’t be. She’s going to be fine, she’s just waiting for the next outbound train. Doesn’t she look like she’s dressed for nightlife, after all?”

“Well, yeah, but it doesn’t really sit right to leave somebody all alone in a subway station. There aren’t even any employees this late, anybody could hop the pay turnstiles… why don’t we just stick around until she gets on a train? I’m surprisingly not really tired, and I don’t have to be up for anything in the morning, so it can’t hurt to wait another,” He checked the sign, “Seven minutes.”

“Speak for yourself, I’m exhausted,” Nanami yawned, but then smiled at him, “That is a good idea, though! Look at that! Here I am supposed to protect people, but you’re the one who comes up with plans like this. I didn’t even consider that she might be in danger while waiting,” She shrugged a bit, holding onto his arm and watching the girl for the next few minutes. Nobody else arrived at the station, and she got on her train safely, so Hinata and Nanami were on their way back to the apartment building, which was only about a block away.

“Ah, would you look at that. It’s the new lovebirds in the neighborhood,” Someone called breathily from across the street, but then was right in front of the two of them. Komaeda, of course. He was smiling widely, but looked distinctly less human than he ever had at any previous point in time, “Nanami, I sincerely regret lying to you… it’s true, I’m not just a simple ghost, and Mikan Tsumiki was absolutely harmless. That’s right. I admit, I lied. But what can you do? Destroy me right here? I know you haven’t got the heart.”

“Hinata, please go inside, right now…” Nanami spoke softly, but her tone was much more flat than comforting. The sort of voice he’d only heard from her when he first saw her interact with Komaeda, and again when she’d threatened Tsumiki earlier that night. However, even the level of intimidation in her voice was something that made him glad to have her at his side; it was in protection of him, after all. He nodded and ran into the apartment building.

“Listen here, Komaeda. Do you think that I won’t do it just because you were once a charge of mine? You must think I’m much weaker than I am…” Nanami tsked, shaking her head as she stepped towards him in tandem with him stepping backwards, and that weapon of light seemed to slowly materialize in her hand, “You know I care about you. I could never stop caring. We were friends, back then, and I do wish that it could be that way again, but Komaeda. You are dead. You are dead, and you died unhappy, and you held a great potential within yourself. Your existence is absolutely dangerous. You already died… and just like everybody else in the world, I need to move on.”

“Nanami, Nanami, please,” He raised his arms in the air, glancing around, suddenly much more afraid of her. He couldn’t bluff his way out of this one… but he could try telling the truth, “I’m sorry. I know, when I’m around Hinata, I do drain his life force… when I kissed him, I stole a huge chunk, but it’s not like I’m doing it on purpose. I’d give anything not to be cursed like this, all I want is to be with him… and, if that would kill him, then I will be content to just watch from afar-”

“No you won’t,” She cut him off, flat and decisive, “You won’t be content to watch him from afar, Komaeda. That’s not the sort of person… that you are. No, that you were. You died. This you… has no right to continue walking the Earth. You’re some sort of creature which steals life from anyone you go near. If it’s not Hinata, you’d hurt somebody else.”

“Nanami, please…” He dropped to his knees, now clutching his hands over the back of his head and staring down at the sidewalk beneath him, “Please, I want to exist… I want to…”

“It’s clutching so foolishly to this mortal plane that made you this way,” Nanami whispered, leaning down and tapping his chin to make him look up and meet her eyes, “Do you know why I’m an angel? It isn’t because I was a good person. To tell you the truth, I lied a lot… I did some things I shouldn’t have. But, when I died, I accepted it. I was shot in the line of the job… see, I was a social worker. And, when I died, I smiled. I decided… this was okay. It was the end of my life, I did everything I was put on this Earth to do. So my purpose changed. I became somebody whose existence only proceeded to help people… and make up for any wrongdoings I’d committed while human. That’s how it is. You… you didn’t want to die. You shouted that to me, while I tried to save you…”

“Nanami…” He choked out, tearing up now, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her face anymore. Those eyes comforted him in ways he couldn’t describe, even as she was rationalizing how she was about to kill him again.

“And you died. But, because you were so adamant that you wanted to live, you continued existing in this form… a parasite. A parasite feeding on the lives of others, because you were so concerned in that moment, about preserving your own… It’s funny, Komaeda. You seem to me, like the sort of person who would have killed himself, but when it was an accident, when you were hurt and afraid… you really didn’t want to die…” She sighed, now cupping his cheeks completely in her hands, having discarded the weapon again, and softly kissed his forehead, “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you then… but now I have to save somebody else. I lost you years ago, Komaeda… and I promise, when I destroy you, I’ll continue missing you just as much…”

“I understand…” Komaeda nodded slowly, a lopsided and wild grin returning to his face as he rose to his feet and held his arms out to his sides, “Nanami… I apologize deeply for causing so much trouble. I only hope you can forgive me…”

“Of course I can… and I hope the same of you. Please… do forgive me…” Her weapon formed in her hand again, and when Komaeda met her gaze once more there were tears in her eyes. There was no wind with time stopped like this, but something about her own angelic aura had her hair floating gently around her shoulders, “I wonder if, perhaps, you’ll get another shot…? After all. Angels… no, nobody. Nobody can choose who lives or dies, who exists or doesn’t… so just think of this as another step in your journey, won’t you please?”

“I understand. I have to go. It’s for Hinata, it’s for… everybody who I’d hurt by staying here. You’re better for him, you can… you can make everything, better. Just please, please, don’t forget me. Don’t let him forget me. And take good care of him…” Komaeda chuckled somewhat bitterly, keeping his arms outstretched, “My arms are getting tired, from being surrendered for all this time, so we should hurry this along. Come on now. Destroy me. You win, you beat me. Even if I didn’t play fair, you did… he deserves you.”

\-------------------

When Hinata got back to his apartment, he couldn’t say he was expecting to see Nanami on his couch, but after an evening like this he wasn’t about to question how she’d managed to get up here before him. He figured her plan had been just to meet him back here and talk to him, but by the time he unlocked the door (now, the better question was how she got past the lock) she had already dozed off on his couch.

He chuckled softly, watching her for just a moment before going to his room and getting a blanket, which he draped gently over her and kissed her nose before going back to his room again. With a guest over, he’d wear pajamas to bed. More decent than boxers and far more comfortable than just sleeping in his clothes. He had no idea, what had ended up happening between Nanami and Komaeda, but he had a strange feeling that he wouldn’t be running into the latter again anytime soon, and the prior’s presence in his living room allowed him to drift off to sleep, soothed and peaceful.

Morning would come, and he’d walk out to find Nanami playing with his lizard, and he’d cook eggs for the both of them rather than going to Starbucks for breakfast, and make a pot of coffee for the first time since getting the coffee machine, because she’d still be so drowsy and he wouldn’t want to ask her to go anywhere with or without him so early in the morning.

She’d compliment his burnt eggs with the tiny bits of shell still in them, and compliment the disgusting coffee that was a mess of beans and sugar thanks to his lack of any creamer in the house, and compliment him. She’d lean over, and kiss him, then fall on the table and fall asleep again. He’d chuckle, and pet her hair, and she’d smile drowsily in her sleep while she dreamed of every morning being just like this one.


End file.
